I think introducing it without an option to turn it off was a mistake because not all players wanted story progression. And the people who find it weird with your friend asking you if they should expand the family will just find the feature annoying because they have to say no.
Personally, I think the sims4 system overall with phonecalls and notifications in the upper right is not a great system...I never liked it. It's immersion breaking and intrusive and some calls feels "fake", sims are calling you to say "this sim is pretty cool!" and things like that. Whats the point? It will only add to all the phonecalls that we are already getting. Like this one.
https://twitter.com/CarlsSimGuides/status/1469886614851706882
I think they should add game options for neighborhood stories, not having the player saying "no" for phonecalls. I always preferred it the way MC Command Center did it where it offered options for the player to customize their game.
